Pressure for inquiry to find flaws in Iraq intelligence

An inquiry into possible intelligence failures over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is looming in Australia, with all opposition parties backing an investigation.

The United States has already flagged two inquiries into its intelligence - upon which Australia largely relied when it decided to go to war - and Britain's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is under intense pressure to do the same.

But the Government maintained yesterday that it had full confidence in the intelligence that was the basis for assertions that Saddam Hussein was an immediate security threat and which underpinned justifications for the war to topple his regime.

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, said there was no need for an independent review - only a day after his colleague, Defence Minister Robert Hill, said Australians should be told if the intelligence was flawed.

Mr Blair has foreshadowed that a new batch of evidence on Iraq's weapons will be released soon and the office of the Prime Minister, John Howard, said yesterday that he would release information as it became available.");document.write("

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However, Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, said: "We are getting to the stage where we need to have a long, hard look at an external inquiry on this Government's proper knowledge of any doubts from the intelligence community on WMD [weapons of mass destruction]."

Greens senator Bob Brown wants an inquiry, and the Democrats are prepared to back one. The three opposition parties have the power to force a Senate inquiry. Former UN weapons inspector Richard Butler and ex-intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie also back one.

About 1500 weapons inspectors, more than a dozen of them Australians, are scouring Iraq for WMD. Three-hundred of 900 suspected sites have been examined, with no result. Two vehicles the CIA said were "probably designed" to produce biological weapons, but contained no such remnants, have been the most compelling evidence so far.

Underpinning concerns in Washington, London and Canberra are that too much reliance was placed on intelligence sourced from Iraqi opposition groups and that political pressure influenced US spy reports.

Mr Wilkie has told the Herald that the Government discounted warnings from the Office of National Assessments that US intelligence most likely exaggerated Saddam's WMD capacity. Senator Hill says inspectors need more time to uncover evidence.